Nutrients cause grassland biomass to outpace herbivory

Journal article

Elizabeth T. Borer, W. Harpole, P. B. Adler, C. Arnillas, M. Bugalho, M. Cadotte, M. Caldeira, S. Campana, Chris R. Dickman, T. L. Dickson, Ian Donohue, A. Eskelinen, J. Firn, Pamela Graff, D. Gruner, Robert W. Heckman, Robert W. Heckman, A. Koltz, K. Komatsu, L. Lannes, A. MacDougall, J. Martina, Joslin L. Moore, Brent Mortensen, R. Ochoa-Hueso, H. O. Venterink, S. Power, Jodi N. Price, A. Risch, Mahesh Sankaran, Mahesh Sankaran, M. Schütz, Judith Sitters, C. J. Stevens, R. Virtanen, P. Wilfahrt, P. Wilfahrt, E. Seabloom
Nature Communications, 2020

Semantic Scholar DOI PubMedCentral PubMed

Cite

APA Click to copy
Borer, E. T., Harpole, W., Adler, P. B., Arnillas, C., Bugalho, M., Cadotte, M., … Seabloom, E. (2020). Nutrients cause grassland biomass to outpace herbivory. Nature Communications.

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Borer, Elizabeth T., W. Harpole, P. B. Adler, C. Arnillas, M. Bugalho, M. Cadotte, M. Caldeira, et al. “Nutrients Cause Grassland Biomass to Outpace Herbivory.” Nature Communications (2020).

MLA Click to copy
Borer, Elizabeth T., et al. “Nutrients Cause Grassland Biomass to Outpace Herbivory.” Nature Communications, 2020.

BibTeX Click to copy

@article{elizabeth2020a,
  title = {Nutrients cause grassland biomass to outpace herbivory},
  year = {2020},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  author = {Borer, Elizabeth T. and Harpole, W. and Adler, P. B. and Arnillas, C. and Bugalho, M. and Cadotte, M. and Caldeira, M. and Campana, S. and Dickman, Chris R. and Dickson, T. L. and Donohue, Ian and Eskelinen, A. and Firn, J. and Graff, Pamela and Gruner, D. and Heckman, Robert W. and Heckman, Robert W. and Koltz, A. and Komatsu, K. and Lannes, L. and MacDougall, A. and Martina, J. and Moore, Joslin L. and Mortensen, Brent and Ochoa-Hueso, R. and Venterink, H. O. and Power, S. and Price, Jodi N. and Risch, A. and Sankaran, Mahesh and Sankaran, Mahesh and Schütz, M. and Sitters, Judith and Stevens, C. J. and Virtanen, R. and Wilfahrt, P. and Wilfahrt, P. and Seabloom, E.}
}

Abstract

Human activities are transforming grassland biomass via changing climate, elemental nutrients, and herbivory. Theory predicts that food-limited herbivores will consume any additional biomass stimulated by nutrient inputs (‘consumer-controlled’). Alternatively, nutrient supply is predicted to increase biomass where herbivores alter community composition or are limited by factors other than food (‘resource-controlled’). Using an experiment replicated in 58 grasslands spanning six continents, we show that nutrient addition and vertebrate herbivore exclusion each caused sustained increases in aboveground live biomass over a decade, but consumer control was weak. However, at sites with high vertebrate grazing intensity or domestic livestock, herbivores consumed the additional fertilization-induced biomass, supporting the consumer-controlled prediction. Herbivores most effectively reduced the additional live biomass at sites with low precipitation or high ambient soil nitrogen. Overall, these experimental results suggest that grassland biomass will outstrip wild herbivore control as human activities increase elemental nutrient supply, with widespread consequences for grazing and fire risk. It is unclear whether terrestrial herbivores are able to consume the extra plant biomass produced under nutrient enrichment. Here the authors test this in grasslands using a globally distributed network of coordinated field experiments, finding that wild herbivore control on grassland production declines under eutrophication.